


Take Me Home

by Wisteria_Leigh



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor canon divergence, Sick Adam Parrish, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 09:31:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16216262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: Adam’s one working ear felt stuffed full of cotton; the road construction down the block was nearly deafening; the weird, ceaseless humming of Cabeswater was clouding his feverish head; and now he was certain the fever was causing auditory hallucinations. Because he could’ve swore Ronan Lynch just asked him to spend the night in his sacred childhood dream home. His lips even made the right shapes to confirm it.Then again, Adam might just be terrible at lip-reading. And also, he was probably hallucinating.





	Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by an anon on tumblr: "maybe like something in the aglionby days™ when adam is sick and refuses to acknowledge and ronan is equal parts furious and worried? or like just in general adam sick fic."

Let’s be clear: Ronan continued to attend Aglionby Academy for one and a half reasons. The half of a reason was Gansey’s plea for him to be “a productive member of society” AKA don’t further soil his already-muddied relationship with Declan and go to school like a good little rich boy.

Really, that half was a generous offering, and it was only because Disappointed Gansey was more unbearable than wearing a tie for 8 hours.

The whole reason was Adam Parrish. 8 hours of Adam Parrish thinking with a furrowed brow in Philosophy, chewing at the edges of his grease-stained fingernail during Calculus, speaking Latin with quiet confidence, wearing a _tie_ for Christ’s sake.

And, if Ronan got his ass to Aglionby early enough, he would get a few minutes alone with Adam: the _only_ reason for which an early arrival to the Good Old Boys Hellhole was worth it.

Adam Parrish--punctual and scheduled to such a point that Ronan was convinced he’d been an anal retentive soccer mom in a past life--arrived exactly 30 minutes early on Mondays and Wednesdays, when he didn’t have a shift at the warehouse before school, and 10 minutes early on the days he did. Today was an off day; or at least as “off” as was possible for Adam “Overextended as Fuck” Parrish.  

But when Ronan marched into the classroom 20 minutes before the first bell, Adam wasn’t there.

He hadn’t been on campus for more than 3 minutes, and the Southern Gentry smell of Aglionby’s halls was already making him nauseous.

15 minutes before the bell. Still no Adam.

Maybe Ronan had overestimated. Maybe the shitbox had a rough start. Maybe he’d grabbed an extra shift. Ronan hadn’t been over to St. Agnes in a few days, hadn’t checked Adam’s calendar recently. Not that he was, you know, _snooping_ when he visited. It’s just out and about on his desk, open for the world to see, and what was Ronan supposed to do when Adam was in the shower after a long shift at Boyd’s? Think about Adam in the shower? No. Fantasize about joining Adam in the shower? Hell no. Do his summer reading? Hell fucking no.

10 minutes.

He broke all the chalk pieces on the ledge into unusable proportions. He carved a new expletive into his desk. He switched Tad Carruther’s usual desk with the left-handed one.

5 minutes.

Boys were filtering in, now. Gansey entered with a cluster of his rowing teammates, saying his goodbyes and starting immediately into some Glendower nonsense aimed in Ronan’s general direction before he’d even sat down.  

Now Ronan was pissed. 20 extra fucking minutes; 0 Adam.

“Where’s Parrish?” Gansey asked.

“Not here, obviously,” Ronan grumbled.

“Did he have a shift this morning? Sometimes that holds him up--”

“No. It’s Wednesday.”

Gansey stared at him.

“He doesn’t work at the warehouse on fucking Wednesday, Dick,” Ronan said, kicking his legs up on the desk as their teacher walked in.

1 minute to the bell.

Parrish hadn’t missed a day since he left the trailer park.

Gansey worried his bottom lip. “You think he’d call the school if something happened?”

Ronan snorted, “Un-fucking-likely.”

Their teacher, Mr. Ryan--a scrawny man who lectured, glared, and graded like teaching had never been his choice career path and most certainly was not now--glared in Ronan’s direction. Ronan readjusted his legs in response.

The bell rang.

Adam stumbled through the threshold.

“Late, Mr. Parrish,” the teacher droned.

“Sorry, sir,” Adam said. Or, well, he tried to say. His voice was harsh and strained, more a rasp than anything. The teacher barely grunted in response, continuing to write objectives on the chalkboard with a disgruntled sigh as yet another nib of chalk disintegrated between his fingers.

Adam barely nodded at Ronan and Gansey as he slipped into his desk and pulled out his notebook. His shirt and sweater were as rumpled as his unbrushed hair.

“Overslept?” Gansey whispered from beside him.

“Something like that,” Adam muttered as best he could, and Ronan nearly winced on his behalf.

“Surprised that word’s in your vocab, Parrish,” Ronan said with a wry grin. Adam shot him a glare over his shoulder that only sharpened Ronan’s smile.

The teacher cleared his throat, brushing chalk dust from his hands. Adam rolled his eyes and turned back to his desk.

Ronan survived school first and foremost by not attending (easy to stay alive by just avoiding poison in the first place) but his second best option was being a nuisance. For the first twenty minutes of class, Ronan was content with desk vandalism and glaring at Tad until he squirmed. But Tad eventually just stopped turning around, and defiling a desk that already had fourteen expletives of varying degrees carved into it just wasn’t fulfilling anymore.

Adam coughed into his elbow.

Oh, yes, that’s right. Ronan was sitting at this hard-ass desk wearing a suffocating tie listening to the fucking poster child of mediocrity drone on about King Henry VIII’s wives and spawn because _Parrish_ was supposed to be at school early today. And who hadn’t shown up to school early? _Parrish._

Wasn’t the first step to managing conflict strong communication? Adam deserved to know he’d ruined Ronan’s whole morning. And deserved to have his morning ruined a bit, too.  

“Parrish,” Ronan whispered.

Adam didn’t respond. Possibly because he didn’t hear him. Probably because he was being a studious little shit.

Ronan swung his legs off the desk and leaned closer to Adam’s right side. “Parrish,” he said again.  

Not even a _twitch_ in his direction, the fucker.

He exhaled noisily and kicked the leg of Adam’s chair. “Hey, shithead,” he hissed.

“What,” Adam snapped, whipping himself around. His voice cracked from strain. It would have been funny, if he hadn’t looked so pissed.  

“Something to share, Mr. Parrish?” Mr. Ryan demanded, thin lips tight and pale brows raised in challenge.

“No, sir, sorry,” Adam muttered.

“If you’re going to continue to interrupt my class, you can see yourself out." The piece of chalk broke against the board.

“It won’t happen again, sir,” Adam said softly, and Ronan swallowed the guilt creeping up his throat.

Mr. Ryan turned back to his incomprehensible scrawl as another piece crumbled into dust. Gansey shot Ronan a look. Ronan replied with his middle finger.

Adam hunched himself over his notes: a declaration for Ronan to _fuck off_.

This day was going to be excruciating.  

  


###

  


It was a lifetime until the bell rang. The building rumbled with movement, chatter echoing through the halls. Boys flung their notebooks into their bags and sauntered off in packs to their next class. Gansey was filling out his notes. Ronan hadn’t taken a single school supply from his bag to being with. Adam’s notebook was shut, but he held his head in his hands instead of packing up.

Ronan and Gansey stood to leave. Ronan nudged Adam’s desk with his hip. “Parrish, you alive? Next class, let’s go.”

Adam dragged his hands down his face and stood up slowly, his movement sluggish and clumsy. The red flush in his cheeks that Ronan assumed was brought about by a rushed morning and public humiliation hadn’t faded. He scowled. Adam scowled back.

Ronan watched him closely through the next few classes. Not like he wouldn’t have done that, anyways. Watching Adam was Ronan’s favorite pastime. But today it was less in reverence and admiration and more from genuine concern, confirmed with Adam’s pallor and deepening flush.

As they left their third class of the day, Gansey gave him a concerned once-over before being pulled ahead by the traffic flow of the hall and handshakes that belonged on executive golf courses and not in a high school. It was nauseating. And speaking of nauseating...

“What’s wrong with you,” Ronan demanded, falling into step with Adam.

“Nothing,” Adam mumbled. “Long night.”

Ronan scoffed. Adam ran a shaky hand through his hair with a sigh.

Oh, Adam. Sweet, sweet Adam. So used to lying. So convinced he was good at it. Sometimes he was, Ronan would give him that. But did he really think he’d fool Ronan? Every spare minute between his minor disturbances throughout the school day was spent watching Adam. He knew how Adam studied, how he took notes, how he chewed on his lower lip and knit his brow, how he jittered his leg while his hand flew across the page of his $1 spiral notebook. So of _course_ he noticed how, today, Adam hunched at his desk, how he drew deeper and deeper inward as class progressed. He noticed the shivering, too: trembles so small no one else would probably notice.

So. Late to school. Grumpy. Shivering on a solidly 80 degree day. Sounding like his larynx had hosted a week-long monster truck rally exclusively for spiked wheels and flaming tailpipes.

Either Cabeswater was pulling some really shady shit, or Parrish was sick.

Honestly, hard to tell which one was more likely at this point.

And of course, _of fucking course,_ anytime Ronan pushed him, he denied it. “Just tired”, “Long day”, “Need more sleep”. Fooling no one but himself. And maybe Gansey.

Regardless, he was looking rough when Ronan found him filling his bag with textbooks from his locker at the end of the day. “Rough” meaning an unearthed corpse would have more life and color than he did. And Ronan had numerous points of reference to confirm that.

“What’re you doing tonight,” Ronan demanded, slamming Adam’s locker shut once his hands were clear.

Adam closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled.

“Work. Calc homework. _Beowulf_ essay. Why?” he rasped, twisting through his locker combination again.

“Work?”

“Work. You know. That thing some of us have to do in order to have money.”

“You look like shit, though. And that’s me being nice.”

“Didn’t realize looking like shit had become a compliment,” Adam croaked drily. “Must have missed that announcement.”

“The fuck is up with you?”

“I’m tired, is all.”

“Can you seriously not think of a more creative lie? C’mon man, put some effort in.”

“Asshole,” Adam replied, the clang of his locker slammed shut adding the strength his voice could not. He heaved his bag onto his shoulder with effort, and dragged a shaking hand down his face. Ronan raised a brow.

Adam sighed. He was sick. It was obvious. He felt like shit. He looked like shit. He could barely talk.

He would absolutely not give Ronan the satisfaction of 1) being right and 2) getting answers by being a dick.

Gansey had a teacher to butter up, or an ambassador’s kid to schmooze on behalf of his mother, or a foot to shove in his mouth in front of a girl or some shit, and therefore told Ronan he’d meet him back at Monmouth. Which gave Ronan time to very casually offer Adam a ride and convince him to, oh, he didn’t know, sleep? Take some medicine? Not send himself to an early grave?

If he cornered him in the car, Parrish couldn’t run anywhere. He could tune Ronan out, or sit in silence and seethe, but he couldn’t physically remove himself from the situation, which gave Ronan the slightest chance that Adam would internalize and eventually concede.

When Ronan planned, he never took his own impatience into account.

Adam’s busted old Trek bike was tangled in a mess of spokes and pedals and handlebars in the bike rack. He sighed wearily.

“Take the night off, Parrish,” Ronan said suddenly, arms crossed and glaring at a chattering crowd of boys loitering by a car far too expensive for a 16-year-old.

Adam paused, one hand on a handle bar and another on the ripping seat. “I hope that’s a joke.”

“Does it sound like I’m trying to be funny?” Ronan snapped.

“It sounds like you’re being shitty,” Adam murmured.

“ _I’m_ being shitty?!” Ronan barked out a laugh. “Is _that_ a fucking joke?”

Adam ripped his bike from the rack with a ragged breath. “Unlike you,” he hissed. “I don’t have a safety net of fucking inheritance or a goddamn full-sized house I can just live in unemployed for the rest of my life rent and mortgage and guilt-free. So yeah, you’re being a rich asshole right now, because you know that I don’t have a choice, which is pretty fucking shitty of you.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan spat. “That’s such bullshit. _I’m_ trying to keep your sorry fucking ass alive. _You’re_ the shithead who can’t pull his own head out of his ass long enough to fucking take care of your shit.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“You don’t fucking need to!” Ronan yelled. Adam flinched away from him. “I’m your fucking friend, this is what friends fucking do! Jesus fuck, why are you still on this same fucking bullshit?”

Adam’s knuckles were white as they gripped the handlebars. His hands were shaking.

“Are you done being a dick?” he asked, tone sharp as ice.

Ronan kicked the bikes in the rack with a satisfying crunch and clang. “Enjoy keeling the fuck over with that giant fucking stick shoved up your ass,” he called, storming away to the parking lot.

He needed a very, very, very long drive.

  


###

  


Ronan didn’t go to St. Agnes that night in the traditional sense. He may have just so happened to be conveniently near the neighborhood close to midnight, and he might have driven down the side street so he could take the “scenic route” back to Monmouth, which may have meant he got a glimpse of Parrish’s window, so if he wanted to he could see if the shithead was still digging his own grave.

He was. In the light of the desk lamp, the shadow of his hunched figure reflected in the window pane.

Ronan cursed, turned his music up a little louder, and sped off.

  


###

  


Restful sleep--like well-balanced meals, a decent winter coat, or a fan in the summertime--was not something Adam Parrish was privileged to. Contrary to popular belief, he did, in fact, sleep deeply. But it was the sort of sleep that sucked him in too far beneath the surface. Dreamless, suffocating, the kind that left him gasping for breath, struggling to break the surface of consciousness again when, a few hours later, he needed to go to work, or finish a lab report, or meet Gansey at Monmouth for dinner and studying. It was never enough, always leaving him groggy, sluggish, feeling worse than he might have had he just pushed through the yawning and heavy eyelids.

It reminded him of how he never had enough of anything. Left him desperate. Left him wanting. And he hated it.

Whatever flu/strep/god-only-knows amalgamation of every virus in a 100-mile radius of Henrietta that had easily infiltrated Adam’s compromised immune system (too little sleep, too much stress, not enough nutrients) made Adam want sleep that much more, and pulled it that much farther from his grasp.

He woke Thursday morning sticky with feverish sweat, head splitting and unable to so much as swallow without his entire body cringing.

He barely remembered slogging through his shift at Boyd’s the previous evening, hiding himself under hoods and beneath cars to keep his flushed cheeks, trembling hands, harsh and fading voice from the others. He barely remembered driving the shitbox home, dragging himself up the stairs to the desk. He remembered thinking that he was no state to write six pages on the literary devices in _Beowulf_ , but probably did it anyways. He remembered thinking that he couldn’t do math problems when the numbers were swimming in his vision, but probably attempted them anyways.

He remembered hearing the echo of the BMW’s engine outside. He remembered waiting for the heavy footsteps on the stairs, or the quick three-rap knock of Ronan’s scarred knuckles on his door.

He remembered the disappointment when it never happened. He remembered loneliness settling deep in his aching bones. He remembered wishing he didn’t feel so shitty, wishing Cabeswater would stop pulling at the edges of his wavering coherency, wishing that he didn’t feel like he was one deep breath from crying and two deep breaths from drowning in his own misery.  

He didn’t remember dragging himself into the shower, or stumbling into bed, or wrapping himself in his threadbare quilt despite his apartment matching the 92% humidity and 78 degrees outside. He didn’t remember what time it was, or when he needed to be up, or why.

His alarm ripped him from sleep with its piercing scream. It was still dark. Was it still Wednesday? God, he had no idea. It was so hot. He was so hot. Probably too hot. God, why was he awake?

His watch told him it was 4:30 AM. It must be Thursday. Unless he slept through all of Thursday. No, not possible. He wouldn’t feel so fucking miserable if he’d slept for over 24 hours. He’d slept for 18 straight before, he knew what true, restful, rejuvenating sleep felt like, and it sure as shit wasn't this.  

Where did he have to go, again?

He slowly raised himself onto his elbows, grasping for the calendar on his desk. He managed to pull it off with a curse, along with the _Beowulf_ book, his notebook, and a bunch of pencils.

Thursday. September 13th. 5am. Warehouse.

Shit.

He fell back onto the bed, head throbbing angrily in response. He couldn’t call out. He needed the money. The extra $20 he would make today would make sure he could fill his gas tank, or buy groceries this week.

Cabeswater pulled at his fraying edges. It had enough respect to let him sleep; now that he was awake, it was already asking for his hands, his eyes, his time and attention and energy, rustling in disappointment when it scrapped nothing but dust from the bottom of his well.

The thick humidity of the forest settled in his bones. Its whispers turned soft, even hesitant. It was worried. Or maybe Adam was just projecting. It would feel nice to have something care about him, even if that something was a bunch of trees.

With a groan, he heaved himself out of bed. Took a cold shower. Downed the last blister of generic cold medicine pills he’d found in the bathroom cupboard when he moved in. Pulled his heavy, sluggish limps into whatever work clothes he could find. Beseeched Cabeswater to keep him alive through the next few hours as he staggered from St. Agnes and forced the shitbox into gear. _I can’t fix whatever it is you need if I’m sick._

Cabeswater, however, could only do so much.

  


###

  


Thursdays, in Ronan’s opinion, were the worst days of the school week. Granted, he hated every day of school, but Thursdays were particularly intolerable, because he didn’t see Adam until third period. 2 full hours of uninterrupted learning? Absolute fucking torture.

Any other Thursday, Ronan would’ve been pissed if Adam ditched and left him to suffer through physics alone. This day, however, Ronan was torn between mourning Adam’s absence from class, or gloating that he’d finally knocked some sense into his stubborn ass; he was willing to suffer if it meant Adam was sleeping off whatever nasty plague he’d picked up.

However, no Adam meant Ronan couldn’t watch his long fingers move a pencil across his notebook, couldn’t stare at his exposed and delicate wrists, couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to press his lips into his knuckles, lick motor oil from his fingers, nip at the tan line encircling his neck--

“I don’t understand,” Gansey muttered to Ronan as the teacher droned on and Parrish’s desk remained very empty. “The shitbox is in the parking lot.”

Ronan froze. “What?”

There was a knock at the door. Ronan’s attention snapped forward. It was only a secretary; he sagged back into his seat and bit as his leather bands like that was a personal offense.

She spoke with the teacher for a second, and left as the teacher turned to the class.

“Mr. Lynch,” he announced. “Nurse’s office.”

“Nurse?” Gansey whispered as Ronan swung his legs off the desk. “Why?”

“Dunno. Don’t care,” Ronan replied, already headed to the door.

Ronan did, in fact, care. He all but ran down the halls and across the courtyard, even checking his phone once he was out of the classroom.

His first worry was Matthew. Best case scenario: he had gotten banged up doing something stupid. Or had the flu or some shit.

Worse case: they had found him. Those hitmen fuckers, like Mr. Grey. They’d found Matthew like they’d found Declan. Had questioned him, like they had Declan. Had beaten the shit out of him when he didn’t have the answers they wanted, like Declan.

But his phone was blank. No new messages. Since Declan was the first emergency contact, they would have called him first. Declan would have said _something,_ at least. Probably multiple things.

It probably wasn’t Matthew. Which was a relief.

It was probably Parrish. Which was a...something. Ronan didn’t really know what, exactly.

Correction: he did know. He knew the feeling exceptionally well, actually. But putting a word to it meant manifesting it, bringing it out into the world; like a dream thing, it could be wrong, corrupted, dangerous, painful if he let it to leave his head, gave it shape and form, allowed it to be seen by others. He didn’t want that. Not yet. Not until he was certain of it. Not until he knew exactly what it was, how it would work.

Ronan stalked into the nurse’s office with a scowl that would scare anyone away from questioning his heavy breathing and cheeks flushed from running.

Adam lay on one of the blue cots, a washcloth draped across his forehead and his arm over his eyes. Ronan didn’t think Adam could look worse than he did the day prior. But Parrish was always full of surprises.

“Enjoying your morning nap?”  Ronan sniped.

Adam saluted him with his middle finger.

God help him, Ronan would do _anything_ to suck something off of that finger.

“The fuck did I get called down here for?” he snapped, smothering the heat in his stomach and worry in his chest with--to no one’s surprise--spectacularly unnecessary aggression.  

“Language, Mr. Lynch,” the nurse chided, which earned her a sneer. “Mr. Parrish has a fever and is being dismissed early. He requires an escort home.”

Ronan grunted in reply.

“I’ll grab you a pass. Make sure you gathering up all your belongings, Mr. Parrish,” she said, and left them alone in the room.

“Early dismissal, huh?” Ronan said, flicking the metal bar of the bed frame. “And here I thought you were just a little tired yesterday.”

Adam scowled as he pushed the cloth from his forehead. “I’m getting you a free pass out of school, Lynch,” he muttered, and _fuck_ if his voice didn’t sound twenty different kinds of awful. “Least you can do is not be an asshole.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Ronan sighed, pitching his voice higher. Adam ignored him, clamping his eyes shut as he sat at the edge of the bed. He looked like he was steeling himself to lift some incredible weight, which, Ronan guessed, is one way you could describe standing up.

The nurse came back, handing Ronan two yellow passes. His golden ticket to an afternoon of freedom without consequence.

“You should die more often, Parrish,” he said, smile sharp as he waved the pass in front of Adam. Adam pried his eyes opened, shook his hanging head, and muttered “shithead.”

The nurse saw them off with instruction of fluids, rest, and a plea for Adam to stay home until he was free from a fever for at least 24 hours.

Adam didn’t make any promises.

  


###

  


Ronan revealed the yellow passes to the secretary like he was revealing all-expense paid trip tickets to some exotic location, dropping them onto her keyboard with a provocative flourish. Her expression was a flipbook of scorn, shock, disbelief, and disdain. Ronan’s grin was maniacal. Adam didn’t think he’d ever seen him so happy.

“That was maybe the best thing I’ve ever fucking seen,” Ronan laughed, practically skipping from the front office with chaotic glee.

Adam would have enjoyed the moment, honestly, if he wasn’t so goddamn sick.

He felt like absolute shit, body aching and shivering and throat full of broken glass and congestion building steadily and his head throbbing in unrelenting waves. He had managed through his shift at the warehouse, had scraped by in his first class. When he literally stumbled over the threshold of his second, the teacher took one look at him and sent him to the nurse. Adam had tried to protest, but needing to lean against the door frame in order to stay upright did not make for a compelling argument.

The nurse gave him one class period to pull himself together. Then she took his temperature. And that was that: dismissal and escorted home, because “it would be unethical to let you get behind the wheel of a car right now, Mr. Parrish. Can’t have you fainting and causing a four-car pile up in an intersection, now can we?” Adam didn’t have the energy to argue.

There were a lot of reasons why he wished this wasn’t happening: falling behind in schoolwork, missing necessary work shifts, pushing off Cabeswater (which was always a very dangerous game), wasting money on medicine, looking pathetic and useless in front of Ronan and his classmates but more importantly Ronan, so on and so forth.

Ronan, however, wouldn’t pity him. Gansey would. So when the nurse asked for an emergency contact, Ronan Lynch was called. There was also a very tiny prickle of guilt beneath Adam’s skin about their argument yesterday. Or maybe that was just the fever. Hard to tell. Regardless, a get-out-of-school-free pass was sort of like an apology. So he could stop feeling bad about it. Not like it mattered. He felt bad all over. One less bad wasn’t really going to help him at this point.

Walking through Aglionby and to the parking lot was...a lot. No, he shouldn’t use that word. Not descriptive enough. Bad writing. It was...muddled. Hazy. Nebulous (now _that_ was a good word. SAT material. Gansey would be proud.) Like he wasn’t tuned into the right frequency. Stuck between stations: fever, Cabeswater, reality. Everything worked differently everywhere else. He couldn’t remember what did what where. They were at the BMW, but...he couldn’t quite figure out what he needed to do to, you know, get in. He could just _will_ the door open, right? If he asked Cabeswater? That’s how this all worked, after all. Move some rocks, pop goes the car door--

“Jesus, Parrish, move,” Ronan grumbled, nudging Adam to the side and opening the door for him.

Oh. You had to use your hands.

“Get in the damn car,” Ronan commanded. “Shit, how sick are you right now?”

“Not that bad,” Adam mumbled. “Could’ve driven myself.”

Ronan laughed, loud and long, and if it hadn’t been so blatantly at Adam’s expense he would have been pleased with himself for getting such a beautiful sound out of Ronan Lynch.

Ronan finally settled. It took an embarrassing number of tries for Adam to buckle his seatbelt.

“Don’t fucking say it,” Adam grumbled in response to Ronan’s raised brow.

“Wasn’t gonna say shit, Parrish.” His sharp smile said he most _definitely_ had some shit to say about it.

Adam leaned his elbow against the window’s edge, holding his throbbing, burning forehead in his hand. He closed his eyes, letting his body sink into the leather seats.

Ronan, who hadn’t obeyed a speed limit in at least 3 years, usually made the drive from St. Agnes to Aglionby in 10 minutes. Adam, eyes shut tight and focusing his minimal energy reserves on keeping the contents of his stomach where they belonged, didn’t notice the ride took 25 minutes.

He was on the brink of sleep, or passing out--really not sure which it would be at this point--when Cabeswater started calling him. Whispers in his clouded head, a jumble of nonsensical Latin and English and _Tr_ _ee,_ whatever the hell that was, hissing through his deaf left ear and echoing in his right.

He groaned. Out loud, possibly. His head pulsed angrily, painfully, nauseatingly.

“Parrish.”

 _No, not now,_ he pleaded. _Please not now,_ he begged.

“Yo, Parrish.”

A branch rocked his shoulder. Wait. No. Too cold, and too soft to be a branch. A vine? Some leaves?

_Let me rest, please, please, please--_

“Hey, trailer trash, wake up.”

Definitely not Cabeswater.

Definitely Ronan.

Adam pried his eyes open. The sunlight burned. He ground his teeth against the headache.

“We’re here. Home sweet shithole,” Ronan said. His hand was on Adam’s arm. Soft. Gentle. Not like how Lynch usually held things. Except when they were fragile. Like baby birds. Or field mice. Or Adam, apparently. He didn’t want Ronan to take his hand away, like the feel of his fingers against his skin. And not just because they were cool.

Adam swallowed with a grimace. The car was still running.

“You gonna get out?”

Adam squeezed his eyes shut. Readied himself to stand.

He realized there wasn’t any music playing. Or if there was, it was so soft Adam’s working ear couldn’t hear it.

“Parrish,” Ronan said. If Adam hadn’t known better, he’d think he sounded worried.

Although...

No. Nope. Not thinking about that right now. The world was too hot and too fuzzy and too _nebulous_ for Adam to make any sense of anything, least of all the fact that Ronan was worried about him and still had a gentle hand on his arm, or that he had dreamed up hand cream for him, or the secrets he’d told him recently about dreaming and The Barns and his family, or the smile he’d gotten from him when he’d let Cabeswater play that one EDM song he said he hated but actually kinda liked because he could watch Ronan drum on the wheel and smile at the bass drops and--

“ _Parrish.”_

“Yeah, I’m going,” Adam mumbled.

He took as deep a breath as he could, fumbled out of the seatbelt and nearly fell out the door.

“Jesus Mary,” Ronan muttered as Adam righted himself against the car. He turned off the car and threw open his door. “Look, do you need me to carry you?”

“Fuck off,” Adam coughed.

“I’m serious.”

Adam pushed himself off the car in reply. Ronan followed behind him.

“I promise I won’t drop you. But like, I’m not convinced you can climb those stairs right now--”

“Lynch, I got it,” Adam grumbled.

“You couldn’t remember how to open a fucking car door, Parrish.”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s the worst fucking lie you’ve ever told.”

Adam stopped. “Fine. I’m not okay. But I hauled boxes this mornin’, so I can climb a damn staircase.”

Ronan had to physically restrain himself from commenting on the fact that Adam _went to a manual fucking labor job this morning with a fucking ass-high fever what the actual shitting fuck is_ _wrong_ _with him_ and it was one of the hardest thing he’d ever done, second only to not punching Declan in the face every Sunday.

Instead of breaking everything in sight, he inhaled sharply and exhaled noisily.

“Look, Parrish,” he said, rubbing the back of head over and over, shoulders up to his ears as he raked his toes through the gravel. “If you...you don’t have--I know the apartment isn’t exactly 5-fucking-stars and...the nurse said you have a fever, and I--you--what if...”

Adam closed his eyes. “Ronan, I reckon I just need to lie down for a--”

“Stay at the Barns,” Ronan said suddenly.

Adam frowned. “What?”

“Stay. At the Barns,” he repeated.

Adam’s one working ear felt stuffed full of cotton; the road construction down the block was nearly deafening; the weird, ceaseless humming of Cabeswater was clouding his feverish head; and now he was certain the fever was causing auditory hallucinations. Because he could’ve swore Ronan Lynch just asked him to spend the night in his sacred childhood dream home. His lips even made the right shapes to confirm it.

Then again, Adam might just be terrible at lip-reading. And also, he was probably hallucinating.   

“What?” Adam asked again.

“God, just. Fuck. Forget it,” Ronan barked, kicking up gravel and storming back to the BMW. “Take your miserable fucking ass and your goddamn pride and go fucking suffer alone in your shithole apartment, whatever.”

“Lynch--”

“No, no, pardon me, Parrish, for giving a shit about you,” Ronan snarled. “My bad. Next time, I won’t waste my breath. Good to fucking know.”

“Ronan,” Adam croaked.

He stopped, one foot in the car and glaring over the roof.

“I-I couldn’t hear you,” Adam croaked. “My ear, it’s not,” he trailed off, gesturing limply, not willing to say it aloud.

Ronan’s grip on the door tightened. He dipped his head, banging his fist on the roof of the BMW a few time. With a smoker’s inhale he pushed himself out of the driver’s side and marched back over.

Maybe it was just Cabeswater fucking with him, but did Ronan Lynch look...remorseful?

He inhaled and exhaled again, keeping his face straight on with Adam’s while his eyes stayed trained on the dirt.

“You should stay at the Barns. Not here,” Ronan said. Slowly, clearly, articulating each word carefully.

So Adam hadn’t been hallucinating. And his lip reading skills weren’t half bad after all.

A soft bed did sound nice. Or the sofa. Hell, a hay bale was probably more comfortable than his second-hand futon mattress on the rough wood floor. There’d be blankets, too. And pillows. And silence. No secretaries talking on the phone, no priests consoling or counseling, no heavy chapel doors slamming. No headlights flashing through his bent and broken blinds throughout the night…

But it was the Barns. It was too far from work. Too far from school. It was too comfortable, too welcoming, accepting of too much without asking of anything in return. It was too special, too meaningful, too important, too _Ronan._

“Well?” Ronan growled. Defensive. Impatient. Ready to be rejected again. Let him storm off, offended, like he always did. Rip the band-aid off, get it over with.

“Okay,” Adam shrugged.

That answered surprised both of them.

“Okay?” Ronan repeated, eyes wide and wary.

“Okay,” Adam rasped.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

They stared at one another.

Ronan’s scowl snapped back into place. “Well, I’m not wasting my excused afternoon dicking around in this parking lot, Parrish, and you look like you’re about to faceplant in the fucking dirt, so get your shit and let’s go.”

Adam nodded vaguely. He had his school bag. Did he need a change of clothes? Maybe. Probably. If he was staying at the Barns. God, he was staying at the Barns. Was that normal? Did Ronan invite others to do that? Would there be clothes there? Probably. Matthew’s or Ronan’s. Because his apartment was so far away and he wouldn’t mind wearing clothes a little too big for him that smelled like fresh hay and Blue Ridge and moss and Ronan--

“Earth to Adam Fucking Parrish,” Ronan called, already halfway to the car. “If you’re not in this car in the next 3 minutes, I’m leaving your ass here, guilt-free.”

Adam trudged up the stairs. Grabbed the first pair of not-jeans and the first t-shirt he saw, grabbed a textbook from his desk, and stumbled back to the car.

He hadn’t moved more than a few feet in total, and still his bones ached with exhaustion.

“Fucking finally,” Ronan muttered as he fell into the passenger’s seat.

The cool glass of the window felt nice against Adam’s burning skin. He shut his eyes, and didn’t open them again until the crunch of gravel under wheel woke him. The car slowed and parked gently. The engine cut.

“Hey,” Ronan said, soft and kind, almost overwhelmingly so. “Adam? We’re here, man.”

“Home sweet shithole,” Adam muttered.

There was a long, icy pause. “The hell did you just say?” Ronan hissed.

“No, I mean, it’s not,” Adam slurred. “You just, you said it about my place and we’re here and I just. It was…”

Ronan sighed. “Yeah, a joke. So funny, you’re fucking hilarious. Get out of my car before you hurl.”

Ronan carried his bag into the house, walking behind him with a concerned and watchful eye that would have, on any other day and under any other circumstances, annoyed the shit out of Adam. But today, Adam felt like his legs could give at any second and falling into Ronan’s arms sounded far nicer than landing on gravel.

“Can you make it upstairs?” Ronan asked as he opened the front door.

Adam looked at him.

“Couch it is, then,” Ronan said.

He led Adam to the living room, and sat him on the couch. “Did you bring clothes with you?” he asked. Adam nodded. “Good. You’d be uncomfortable as shit in that torture suit.”

Adam nodded again. He had absolutely no intention of getting up for the next century and a half, at least.

Ronan paused a few steps up the stairs. “If you want to change, bathroom’s thattaway,” he said softly. Adam looked to him, brow furrowed.

“What?” Ronan snapped.

“Nothing, I just. Nothing, nevermind,” Adam muttered. Whatever fleeting kindness he’d seen in Ronan’s ice blue eyes must have been a delusion.

“Weirdo,” Ronan snorted, and thundered up the rest of the stairs.

When he returned with blankets and a pillow, Adam was already asleep, curled up on the sofa, still in his uniform. Ronan lifted Adam’s feverish head onto the cool pillow (designed by his father, he thought, from when the Lynch boys would get sick: always chilled, always comfortable, no matter how ill you were), and draped a quilt over him.

Nothing left to do now except wait.

 

###

 

For the second time that day, Adam tumbled into consciousness without a clue where he was in space or time. He knew he was somewhere soft and warm. Somewhere that smelled of firewood and farms. Somewhere that wasn’t musty like St.Agnes or stale like the trailer or damp and mossy like Cabeswater, that wasn’t grumbling like the Pig or humming like BMW. It was quiet. It was gentle. It was unlike any place he’d ever woken up before.

It was home.

He nuzzled deeper into the pillow, cool against his cheek, letting it cradle his aching head; he curled into the quilt that someone (mom? Dad? That’s who lived in this home with him, right? That’s who took him home from school? Who else would do that?) had given him. He still felt like shit, but as long as he was home, he felt just a little bit better.

He inhaled deeply. Home.

He exhaled. Home?

His breath caught in his throat.  

This was not his home.  

His home was broken bones and bruises, cheap upholstery that made him itch, second-hand mattresses with springs that stuck his sides, growling stomachs and silent sobs into a flat, yellowed pillow. His home was peeling paint and creaking floors, organ practice vibrating the walls while he studied, a lumpy futon bought from Craig’s List with quarters found in sidewalk cracks and dollar tips from the garage.

His home was dark. His home was lonely. His home was a place meant for leaving, not sinking deeper into its comforting embrace.  

Wherever he was-- _Virginia, Appalachia, Singer Falls, The Barns,_ supplied a thought untouched by fever--it was not his. It would never be his, no matter how desperately he wanted it to be.

He fought against the pain in his throat to swallow a sob before it could burst. Everything hurt. He shivered beneath the blanket.

It took considerable effort, but he managed to open his eyes and push himself up onto his elbow. The lights of the living room were off and the curtains were drawn, but--thin and wispy as the cotton lace was--afternoon sunlight still softened the edges of the shadows. Supplies had taken over the coffee table: tissue boxes, bottles of water and orange juice, blister packs, liquid medicine, bags of suspicious-looking herbal...somethings or other. For him, he assumed.

A thought, buried deep beneath heavy layers of heat and exhaustion, that he could posit but neither unearth nor understand: there was no way all of these supplies were already in the house.

The front door opened. “Parrish?” Ronan said softly. “You awake?”

Adam groaned in reply.

“Gansey’s coming with your homework,” Ronan said, coming to sit on the coffee table. He’d changed from his uniform, now in jeans and a tank top and bare feet.

When he looked at Adam’s face his brow furrowed. “You okay?” he asked.

“Obviously not,” Adam scoffed.

“No. I mean, yes, clearly you’re fucking dying, but I’m not talking about that. Were you crying?”

Adam sniffed and scrubbed his eyes with his forearm. “No, just tired,” he muttered.

Ronan grunted, in neither assent nor disbelief. He picked at the frayed edges of a designer rip that split across his knee.

“You gonna lay around in that tie all day?” he asked.

“What if I am?” Adam said.

Ronan snorted. “I get that you’re a loser who likes school, but c’mon man, even a nerd like you doesn’t sleep in a sweater vest.”

“Maybe I do now,” Adam replied.

“You don’t. I’ve slept over your apartment, shithead.”

Adam opened his mouth to respond, before his breath hitched and he sneezed violently into the crook of his elbow.

“God,” he rasped. “That was--”

“Fucking gross,” Ronan said.

Adam grabbed some tissues, cleaned himself up as best he could.

“Look, just. Go change,” Ronan said, tossing a thermometer in his lap. “Take your temperature while you’re at it. Can’t have you kicking the bucket on my watch, ‘else Dick will pop a blood vessel.”

Adam didn’t have the energy to be difficult anymore.

 

###

 

The clothes Adam had grabbed were...well, not ideal. The exact opposite of lounge clothes, actually.

“Why the fuck did you bring those with you,” Ronan growled, pointing an accusatory finger at the coveralls.

“I didn’t mean to,” Adam replied. “I just. They kinda looked like my sweatpants, I guess. And I just, grabbed them by accident.”

Ronan’s gaze narrowed as if interrogating him with his stare alone, but he eventually deemed his explanation to be honest. “I have shit you can wear. Hold on.”

Adam wanted to protest, wanted to argue that Ronan’s clothes would never fit him, that he would get them all germy, that he should really be getting back home anyways to do homework and sleep before the long Friday of school-Boyd’s-warehouse.

But he was horribly uncomfortable in the button-down and khakis. And this sofa was so much softer than his bed at home. And if the mere thought of walking to the car was exhausting, Adam didn’t think he could physically manage it.

So he didn’t say anything as Ronan ran back upstairs. And all he did was mumbled a hoarse “thanks” when Ronan threw a pair of flannel pajama pants and a dark grey hoodie at him. He dragged himself to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, stuck the thermometer under his tongue as he pulled his taffy limbs from his Aglionby uniform and into the wonderfully soft clothes Ronan had provided.

He sat on the edge of the tub, already exhausted. The hoodie smelled so much like Ronan.

A part of him was very disappointed knowing he’d have to give it back to him.

Scratch that: all of him.

The thermometer beeped. He ran some soap and water over the tip, blew his nose, and washed his face again.

“Well?” Ronan asked, leaning against the kitchen door jamb as Adam emerged from the bathroom.

“102.8,” Adam replied, tossing the thermometer back to Ronan.

“That sucks,” Ronan replied.

“No shit,” Adam said, punctuated by a harsh cough. He shuffled back to the couch and buried himself back under the covers.

“Want any meds?” Ronan asked, in the same tone he’d used to ask about Adam’s clothes, which meant he intended to command if Adam’s answer wasn’t suitable.

Adam shrugged. “Did you get these all for me?” he asked, barely suppressing a shiver.

“No,” Ronan said, and he obviously had no intention of giving Adam any further details. “Pick your poison, Parrish.”

Here’s the thing: Adam was stuck. He did not want to take any meds, because he knew that Ronan had, in fact, bought them for him. He didn’t think Ronan lied, per say, because sure, one of those seven different kinds of medicines was probably already here. But the rest? Ronan had absolutely gone to Walgreens or something while Adam was unconscious.

So. Adam Parrish doesn’t accept charity. Therefore, Adam Parrish would not accept these very charitable medicines and cough drops and teas and soups (he would make an exception for tissues because otherwise, as demonstrated earlier, it’d just be unpleasant for everyone involved.)

But. _But._ Adam Parrish doesn’t accept charity because he can make his own money, at his three jobs. He can pay for his rent and his scholarship and gas and his own generic pill blisters with the money he damn well _earned._

Adam Parrish cannot earn the money needed for rent and scholarship and gas and generic pill blisters if he does not go to work because he’s sick. And the longer he goes without medicine, the longer he’ll feel like shit, and the longer he’ll be out of work.

Even baking at nearly 103 degrees, Adam knew he’d been fucked by his own principles.

But bless his prideful, stubborn little heart if he wasn’t about to try to argue the shit out of this anyways.

Ronan’s brow crept higher with every passing second Adam didn’t respond.

And then The Pig announced its arrival in a fanfare of grumbles that would have concerned any mechanic.

The discussion was dropped temporarily, although the pointed finger and raised brows Ronan directed his way suggested that the second Gansey left he’d be force-feeding Adam _something_ if a decision wasn’t made by then.

Ronan opened the front doors before Gansey could knock. Adam heard them talking, but couldn’t define the words with his clouded hearing until they moved a little closer.

"...nice of you to watch him. Really," Gansey was saying, voice soft and clearly trying to not be overheard by Adam. 

Ronan scoffed. "Don't act so surprised, Dick."

"You know I don't mean it like that, Lynch. I'm  _admiring_ the fact that you were excused from school, free pass and all, and are using your time productively."

"Watching Parrish turn into 92% snot isn't how I'd define being 'productive.'"

"Just accept the compliment," Gansey sighed. "And know that this personal growth is noted."

Ronan made a mocking sound, but Adam was sure there'd be a grumbled thanks soon to follow.

Adam hadn't thought that: Ronan having a free day off, a day to wreck havoc, speed down back roads, hell even just sit in the barn and _dream_ , and instead of doing any of the things he was sitting with Adam, checking on him, offering him clothes and meds and water and  _company._

Adam did not have the energy to parse out why that made his heart stutter, nor the time. They were coming to the living room, footsteps a little louder than was necessary. As if hiding that they'd been talking about him. 

Gansey came over to the couch, having dropped his shoulder bag in the doorway, right as Adam sneezed twice into a tissue. “Parrish," he exclaimed. "Good Lord you look…”

“Like fucking plague shit?” Ronan offered.

“I was going to say ‘ghastly’--”

“Of course you fucking were.”

“-- but yes, that’s an apt description. I’d ask how you’re feeling, but…” he drew a circle in the air around Adam.

Adam tried to rubbed the weariness from his eyes. “I feel like fucking plague shit,” Adam groaned, tossing the tissue into a wastebasket Ronan had brought over for him.

Gansey winced at the sound of his voice. Ronan rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“Have you taken anything? Checked with a doctor? I know the school nurse was involved, but--”

“It’s just a cold,” Adam insisted.

Ronan shouted a brutal “ha.” “Colds don’t give you a fever, dumbass,” he said.

“No one asked your fucking opinion, Lynch,” Adam hissed.

“I’m sorry, is this your goddamn house? No? Then guess who’s opinion is at the bottom of the fucking totem pole right now. Give you a hint: it sure as fuck ain’t mine.”

“The bottom of the totem pool is where they put the important people, moron.”

“For Christ’s _sake_ , Parrish. Do you get off on being a fucking smartass?”

“Reel it in, Lynch,” Gansey commanded. Ronan, obedient as always, threw himself into a chair and seethed in silence. “And illness is no excuse for shittiness, Parrish,” Gansey continued, looking at Adam over his glasses like a fucking 1950s father disciplining his kids at the dinner table while trying to read the daily news. “Play nice, both of you.”

Adam rolled his eyes, but fell quiet as well.

“Now, as for your homework. Which, by the way, I’m obligated to insist you refrain from doing until you’re feeling less like, well, what Ronan said. That aside, it’s all pretty simple…”

 

###

 

Adam did not promise Gansey that he’d leave studying and homework for when he wasn’t on the brink of death. However, the pounding of his skull and burning sinuses made concentrating on Gansey’s explanation nearly impossible, which meant homework was absolutely out of the question.

“Did that all make sense?” Gansey asked when he’d finished. “Any questions?”

Adam genuinely didn’t think he could summarize a single thing Gansey had just said, but nodded anyways.

Ronan’s chair was just outside of Adam’s line of vision, but Adam could still feel his gaze, had felt it the entire time Gansey had been talking. Ronan knew he was lying. Ronan, for once, kept his mouth shut.

“I’ve got a call with Mallory in a minute, so I’ll leave you to it,” Gansey announced, placing the stack of notes and worksheets on the end table. “I’ll collect notes and assignments tomorrow as well, if you’re not in.”

“Aw, thanks so much, Dick,” Ronan said.

Gansey shot him his signature Disappointed Dad Glare. “Not you. _You_ should be in class tomorrow. If you skip again--”

“--didn’t skip today--”

“--you’ll be in detention until Christmas.”

If it wasn’t Gansey giving him the lecture, he would have argued more. But the Dad Glare© was patented and foolproof and Ronan’s one true weakness. He slumped back in the chair, chewed his leather bands, and reluctantly agreed.

“Parrish, rest up. If you need anything, let me know?”

Adam nodded. “Thanks, Gansey. I owe you.”

Gansey clearly wanted to contest that statement, but his phone rang and then he was out the door, the Pig’s rumble fading as quickly as it had appeared.

“Alright, Parrish,” Ronan declared. “Poison. Pick one.”

Damn. He’d really hoped Gansey would have been a decent enough distraction.

“I’m good,” he lied.

“Like hell you are. I can smell the bacteria from here.”

Adam grimaced. “I should shower,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

“Don’t even think about leaving that couch. Now pick something, or so help me, I will give you the worst tasting shit on this table.”

“I told you I’m good.”

“Your goddamn _principles_ told me you’re good. Your face tells me otherwise.”

“Really, I can manage without it.”

Ronan was ripping the wrapper from a Theraflu bottle. “By suffocating on mucus and letting a fever deep-fry your brain? Bullshit.”

“Maybe I like suffering,” Adam grumbled, just to be contrary, just because he felt awful and didn’t have the energy to be nice or thankful or to understand why Ronan Lynch was suddenly so concerned with his well-being.

 _Not suddenly,_ he realized. _Manibus. Sing-a-long. St. Agnes. You know what he thinks of you._

Adam dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Really not the time to fall down this spiral.

Ronan leveled him a look. “Right. You love it so much. Explains why you’d work yourself to death. Because you’re a fucking masochist.”

Adam glared at him.

“You are so full of shit, Parrish. Take the goddamn meds.” Ronan thrust the cup of bright red syrup in his face.

Adam frowned, but knocked it back like a shot. He wiped the back of his mouth, shivering with a grimace as the medicine slid down his throat, warming and burning all at once. Ronan was already waiting for him to hand the cup back.

Adam curled in on himself, sitting sideways on the couch, letting the size-too-big hoodie and blanket swallow him. He rested his cheek on the back of the couch. Ronan sat next to him, keeping his distance. Keeping too much distance, if Adam were honest. Good thing he wasn’t.

Not that long ago, he and Ronan sat in these same positions in choir pews as silver moonlight turned pastel through the stained glass of St. Agnes. When Adam asked Ronan to do the impossible, the unethical; asked him to break his moral code and use his beautiful, awesome gift to create something grotesque, horrific, a nightmare Adam had made and calculated without a second thought. Where Ronan watched himself die on the floor before the altar of his God; where Ronan scrubbed viscera and gore from the carpet, the place where he knelt during Mass as a Priest offered to lay a host upon his tongue and help him sip the blood of Christ; where Ronan, beneath the watchful eyes and outstretched arms of the Virgin Mary, sat baptized in the blood of his corpse with an army of nightmares gnashing their fangs just beyond the veil of sleep, ready kill him again and again.

All because Adam had asked him to.

“Why’re you doin’ this?” Adam asked, voice cracking miserably and Henrietta roots slipping through the opening.

Ronan blinked. “What? Pouring you medicine? You could have done it yourself, man, if you weren’t so fucking prideful and shit.”

“Not just that. The medicine. The tissues. This.” He gestured limply to the clothes and the blanket and the couch and everything else. “Why are you taking care of me? Why do all this, why are you always doing all of this?”

Ronan’s brow furrowed. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Because we’re friends, Parrish. We’ve been fucking over this.”   

“No,” Adam said. “This is more. Everything is always more. Why?”

“Because you need someone to take care of your ass since you can’t fucking do it yourself.”

“No,” Adam insisted. “There’s more. You know there is.”

“Why are you asking this right now?” Ronan snapped back.

“Because it matters.”

“No, it really fucking doesn’t.” And Adam recognized that tone. Bitter resignation. Ronan wasn’t looking at him, staring at his bare feet and running his hands over and over the back of his head.

“It does,” Adam said softly, punctuated by a heavy cough.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” Ronan declared, leaping up from the couch. “You were right. You should go home.”

“What?”

“I. Shouldn’t. Have. Brought. You. Here.” Ronan snarled. Defensive. Angry.

“But I’m--”

What? What was he? Tired? Pained by the thought of moving? Comfortable? Content, here, surrounded by Ronan’s smell and warmth and memories of family? So sick and miserable, and only thing making him feel even slightly alive was knowing that this place was the first place to ever truly feel like home to him? Overwhelmed by the way Ronan just...took care of him? Without intending to ask anything in return? The way he felt Ronan wanted him, even when he was a contagious fucking mess?

What was Adam? Adam was sick as shit, but Adam had butterflies in his stomach that weren’t just nausea, felt his body grow warm in a way that wasn’t the fever.

Everything else in his head was either burnt to a crisp or trapped behind fog thick as split pea soup. Only one thought cut through it all with increasing, terrifying, exhilarating clarity.

“I--I don’t want to leave,” Adam admitted.

Ronan stared at him, his eyes growing wide before clouding with uncertainty. It was quickly shuttered away behind half a sneer. “Too fucking bad. You have work and school and your whole shitty life to deal with, and I sure as hell am not attending any of those things. So. Time to go.”

Adam recognized the look in his eyes; Ronan didn’t lie, would be faced with either telling the truth if Adam asked the question hanging between them, or running. So he would run.

Adam’s hand shot, quick as a snake, and grabbed his wrist. “Ronan,” he said. He didn’t mean for it to sound so weak, so pathetic, but he swallowed the pride and took as deep a breath as he congested sinuses would allowed.

Ronan paused. Adam could see the gears turning in his head. Fight or flight?

Adam let his hand slide from Ronan’s leather-banded wrist and down to his fingers. Ronan’s gaze flickered and followed. Adam could feel him holding his breath, see his pulse pause, waiting to either sore or plummet.

Adam held Ronan’s heart in his hands. And he always had, Adam realized with increasing guilt. He hadn’t taken very good care of it. But he could make up for it.

With a tentative, trembling touch, he curled his fingers around Ronan’s. “I want to stay, as long as I can. Here. With you,” Adam whispered, and he wasn’t just talking about today. “Please?”

For a long, terrible moment, Ronan didn’t move. His stiff hands didn’t even twitch in acknowledgment as his eyes grew wider and wider, and Adam’s stomach threatened to heave. He’d misread it. He’d let his feverish, delusional, stupid, _stupid_ mind make shit up, see signs that weren’t there, think that beautiful, powerful, unknowable Ronan Lynch could possibly feel anything more than pity and an obligation of charity for his cruel, poor, pathetic bumfuck nowhere ass and now he’d gone and fucked it up to hell and back and--

Ronan’s fingers wrapped around his, firm and certain.

They both exhaled.

“Okay,” Ronan agreed.

“Okay,” Adam said.

Both knew they weren’t just talking about today.

“Want to sit with me?” Adam asked.

“Yes. Quick question, though: can I go piss first?”

“Gross,” Adam said.

“Look who’s talking, snot boy."

Ronan squeezed his hand, held it for a second more, and then let go. He rubbed the back of his head, and gnawed on his bracelets for a moment. Adam watched his expression work through 27 different emotions and back again. At last, he shook his head. “I swear to God, Parrish, if you’re just delusional, I will fucking kill you,” he muttered.

“I promise I’m not, Gansey,” Adam said, and Ronan looked like he’d been punched in the face.

“Shit, Lynch, I’m kidding. It was a joke.”

Ronan’s shoulders sagged. He tried to cover his very visible relief with a glare, and snapped, “fuck you, Parrish.”

Adam smiled. “Sorry.”

“Liar.”

“A little, yeah.”

Ronan was gone only a few minutes, but by the time he returned Adam’s eyes were already growing heavy again.

“Sleepy?” Ronan asked softly.

Adam nodded. “Stay with me, though?”

Ronan obliged. Adam settled into the pillow, nuzzling his head into Ronan’s shoulder. When he was feeling better, he’d probably feel embarrassed about this sudden neediness, but for right now...he was miserable. And Ronan made him feel a little bit better. So did Theraflu, and Tylenol, and Gatorade, but he couldn’t exactly snuggle into any of those.

He felt Ronan’s hand hovering just above his head, his impulses twitching with restraint.

“Can I?” Ronan asked.

Adam nodded.

He threaded his fingers through Adam’s sweaty hair, and grazed the bones of his face with his knuckle.  

“This okay?” he asked. Adam hummed in assent. They lay in silence for a few minutes, Adam relaxing into Ronan’s touch, focusing on how his fingers wove across his scalp and cooled his burning skin.

“This better not be a fever dream, Lynch,” Adam sighed.

“I already used that line, dumbass,” Ronan said. “And if this is anyone’s dream, it’s mine.”

“Wish you would’ve dreamed me healthier, then,” Adam grumbled.

“I gave you straight teeth, remember? Only so much I can do.”

Adam smiled. “You’ve done more than enough.”

“I try,” Ronan replied. He rested the back of his hand to Adam’s forehead and cheek.

“You’re still really warm,” he noted.

“Still feel like shit,” Adam mumbled into the pillow. “Sorry if I get you sick.”

“It’s worth it,” Ronan said. And Ronan didn’t lie.

“Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up, okay?”

Something soft pressed into Adam’s temple. A kiss. Gentle and sweet.

Fever-sleep, in Adam’s experience, was never restful, as full of frenzied, violent dreaming as it was. Yet feeling the weight of Ronan’s arm around his waist, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the soft caress of his fingers along his skin, Adam thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally been gifted with the chance.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! Thanks for reading! I write fanfic as writing practice, so my work is open to constructive criticism if you notice any ways this can be improved. 
> 
> Thanks for stopping by!


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